1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to methods for producing sheetable potato dough from raw potato stock and, in particular, processes for making potato dough based products incorporating raw potato stock in place of dehydrated potato flakes, resulting in improved flavor characteristics.
2. Description of Related Art
There are many advantages in the food processing industry to developing products that can be made using a dough as the starting material for the product. A dough product might be sheeted, formed, cut, extruded, or shaped if necessary. For example, tortilla chips use as a starting material a corn or masa based dough which is pressed through a sheeter device and then cut into individual chip shapes. The masa is sufficiently cohesive that it can be pressed into a thin sheet and placed onto a conveyor without tearing, and is thus referred to as a "sheetable" dough. Typically, cookie and cracker type snacks start as a flour based dough which is extruded and cut or sheeted and cut. Methods for producing wheat flour and corn flour based doughs that are suitable for sheeting and extruding are well known in the industry.
Potato based doughs typically use potato flour or dehydrated potato flakes as a starting material. Potato dough made from raw potatoes is not used in applications requiring sheeting or extruding, because the properties of the dough are not acceptable for this purpose. Specifically, potato dough made from raw potato products tends to adhere to processing equipment surfaces yet it does not maintain adequate cohesion for sheeting or extruding. Past attempts at making a sheetable potato dough from raw potato stock have failed, resulting in a dough that is of a paste consistency which is not suitable for forming into pressed sheets for cutting or forming.
Potato flour and potato flakes start with a raw potato product which is cooked and then dehydrated to a dry flour or flake consistency, thereby leaching many of the sugars and homogenizing the raw material. Unfortunately, much of the potato flavor is lost in such process. Consequently, when such flour or flakes are used as a starting material, flavor additives are typically incorporated to produce an edible end product, such as a chip like snack. However, a potato flour or potato flake based product has yet to be developed that closely emulates a potato chip made from raw potato stock.
Accordingly, a need exists for a process that incorporates as a starting material raw potato product into potato dough that results in a potato based product that is suitable for extruding and sheeting. By introducing the raw potato stock into the starting dough, the flavor of the end product should be greatly enhanced. The raw potato stock should replace dehydrated potato flour or flakes, thus providing a more natural potato product. At the same time, the process should produce a potato dough gel having handling properties suitable for use with standard food processing, sheeting, extruding and cutting devices.